15 January 2016

While the digital era continues to constrain our manual skills, obliging our hands to make repetitive and standardized gestures, there is still one small pocket of resistance: courses in calligraphy are all the rage and more and more people are choosing to devote time to the practice of “fine penmanship,” in an attempt to regain the freedom of expression that distinguishes the individual. But the Neri collection of pens and propelling pencils does not just represent the venture of Internoitaliano, a brand that aims to connect design with Italian handwoven fabrics, into a new sector of merchandise, that of writing material. Designed by Giulio Iacchetti, two-time winner of the Compasso d’Oro, Neri is made by Parafernalia, engaged since 1968 in the production of writing implements, a category of objects capable, according to Iacchetti, of “fully expressing the essence of design: refinement, simplicity, the archetype of a technical instrument, an extension of the hand and the mind.” Made from solid rods of aluminum, turned on a lathe and bored, they are available in three different colors and with a finish obtained by the anodization and subsequent sanding of the surface. The first six pieces in the collection bring back into our daily lives the pleasure of an almost nostalgic gesture, given that the lead in the pencil and the refill in the pen are placed in position by turning a brass screw, similar to the way the points of the compasses used in technical drawing are adjusted: something which many of us, in short, experienced at first hand in our school classrooms, at a time when they were not yet equipped with interactive multimedia whiteboards.